Horror Pandemonium

[bishop]

Preface

A little over a year ago, I spent 31 days writing almost 29,000 words. The result was something a bit over the top of bizarre and bit under the edge of sanity. This is merely the sketch version. I've never returned to it in order to flesh it out or polish it up in any way. Even my editor is disappointed in me for not setting out to complete this. Maybe someday I'll pacify her and just rewrite the whole thing in a better way.

This story started out in one direction, a sentence or three that set the tone of what I thought I would write. It instantly turned and went a different direction that made the introduction completely worthless and out of place.

Sorta.

I guess, in a way, it really was exactly as it was supposed to be, but it still seems out of place unless one is aware of the truth behind the fiction. But that's not what this is for here. As I prepare to do it again, with a different story, different people, different situations, I thought it was time to take this out of the closet so that I could remember the past in order to look ahead and think. And in that process, I thought I'd share with a larger audience than it originally had.

Word of warning: Don't ever think that one's heroes are so ideal that they do not have ghosts in their closets. They all do. Some just rise to the surface in ways that are terrifying, horrific and disturbing. But it makes them no less human, no less heroic.

I reread this story every once in a while and see how disjointed the whole beginning really is and watch as it starts to piece together coherently later in the story. That's intentional. So, for now, I'm going to post several "chapters" a day. It is a "mature" story, disturbing to some, but peanuts to others who, like me, grew up in the time of Friday the 13th and Freddy Krueger. But it is a story where the truth is stranger and more disturbing than the fiction.

Enjoy.

bishop
Summer 2005

 

[bishop]

Pandemonium: Title

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The Sketch Edition​

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bishop​

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February-March 2004​

This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity between people and places in fiction and semi-fiction and any real people and places which may exist is purely coincidence, Jungian synchronicity, Freudian slip or paranoia. No reference to any real persons is intended or should be inferred. The world is flat.

Pandemonium: A Myth of Obsession and Insanity

All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2004 by kindredXnet.
Cover Art © 2004 Basilisk Design.

No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.

 

[bishop]

One

One

This is a story.

This is the not-so-classic story of a man and a woman in love, driven into each other's arms by their shared reality and lost in the blackness of the night. The lies and the truth blend so carefully into one little gray area that they are no longer lie or truth, but something alien to them both.

 

[bishop]

Two

Two

Even in the beginning, there was nothing but darkness between them. Even now, years later, there was nothing but darkness that surrounded him in the cell -- just as she had surrounded him for all that time. What little light shown through the window revealed almost imperceptible shapes of the blocks from which he had built towers and walls around the padded room. That much was apparent, at least. Huddled in a mass of silent tears, Jared's body shook as he clinched his eyes tightly, trying to escape the memories of what transpired within those walls. The cell, the darkness, the silence. All was comforting to an extent that it was predictable.

He knew what few understood about this asylum -- this sanctuary from pain as he preferred to think of it. Everything around him had been custom built just for him. The room, the walls, the scarlet padding that still bore marks of his repeated attempts to slam a reality he knew didn't exist back into his brain, even the straight jacket that held him tightly bound and almost motionless on the floor, the cell door with no locks, the covered window that never opened to the outside save for a small crack in the plaster worn through by Time. Each and every piece, every nuance of this place was custom made to his own specifications. What more could he ask for? He placed himself in this prison, this cathedral of silence and solitude. He asked for it. He begged for it. It was his reality, although he wondered if anyone else could see it too.

This cell was more than his reality, however. It was his memories that held him here. He could have walked away at any time. But he didn't. He couldn't. He wouldn't. It was the security of the darkness that surrounded him. It was the illusion of someone coming to the door to greet him each morning. It was the trickle of sunlight that left a single line of hope that moved ever so slowly across the floor throughout the day. It was his pain that put him there. It was his hope that kept him there. And, now, it was his love that locked him in and threw away the key.

How did I get here? Do I remember? Why am I still here? Do I care? Thoughts and memories transfixed in his mind, mesmerizing his dreams. Past, present, future; all partaking of the torture that he placed himself through in a daily ritual of desire and longing. Where is that angel that inspired me? Where is that candle that I used to see in the night? I don't know. I built halls in my prison in order to walk them alone, to haunt them even so that I might feel useful in this place. But I'm lost now. Not even a ghost. Not even a memory. Not even me.

Silently, Jared curled back up in the comfort of the straps that held his arms close to his body. The warmth of the straight jacket was enough to lull him back to a sense of security, if only for the moment. Night would come again. The light on the floor would eventually hit his face if he sat still long enough. That would be the only clarity he would have. It would last for only a moment. It would only last as long as he could scream for it to end. Then it would be nighttime soon after and he could sleep again. The dreams would come. Her face would come again. Or maybe he would awake to the sight of her holding that candle in the doorway.

But somehow, tonight, he knew, would be no different than those of the last week when it all changed. There would be no candle. There would be no visitor in his dreams. It would be a nightmare that repeated itself over and over again. The leering Jester that tormented him in his sleep. That shifting illusion of a human being that sucked the life from him with each passing day. It would be that nightmare again tonight. He knew it. He was never wrong. He wanted so desperately to be wrong. And that was driving him insane.

 

[bishop]

Three

Three

Jared tossed and turned on the floor, still bound by the straight jacket in which he had encompassed himself. The dreams tortured him as he slept -- if it could be called sleep. It was merely that which kept him from passing the time in a state of consciousness. Dreams of a memory of a past that now seemed more like a Dali painting than any kind of reality through which he had actually lived. The mere existence of her face in those dreams was enough to trigger the madness cascading down into his awareness and flooding what sanity he had left even when he slept. It was worse when he was awake and staring at the dark walls around him.

I made these walls with my own hands, my own Will, my own desire. The walls served to remind him of his isolation. It reminded him of a time when he felt imprisoned not by remorse or guilt, but by the love of a woman from whom he had wished never to escape. But somewhere along the way, he had built this prison, and she was no longer seen in the halls. She had been there for a while; simply, quietly, even gently soothing the pain that she knew she was inflicting upon him. But now there was only one in this room. He was alone in his cell surrounded by empty memories and strained recollections of promises now lost in the winds of time.

It wasn't enough that she left him there. It was that she brought the Jester with her on that last visit. That one time she had to share her feelings for him. That one time that she could have altered the future of them both. But she needed that deranged carnival. Farewell to the Flesh, she said, is not enough. She wanted to see his mind destroyed as well. Sitting him down in the chambers of the cell, she spoke softly, promising treasures and pleasures that were not of this world. She seemed like she was speaking in a trance, not of her own mind. Jared held on to every word, to every detail of her face as she stroked his love and fed his hunger for her touch.

And then she left with a little burgundy box that held Jared's heart and never looked back. But he remembered. She did look back. Just one glance. But it was that one look. He saw it. There was something behind her eyes that told Jared that she knew the truth but only wanted the illusions found in the Jester's hat. But still she left knowing that her fate was sealed in the phantasms of the Court of Fools while hoping to meet the King along the way. Jared knew there was no King where she was being led. There was no King on the throne. There was only the malicious lies of the Jester and the sneer that left others in fear of his power. But still she went, seemingly unafraid, bought by promises of power and glory. Then she left Jared to rot in his memories. Memories of how it began, of how it ended, and how everything else in-between seemed like a dream of the Island of Paradise in the midst of the Lake of Hellfire. It was those dreams that wounded him the most.

Then there was a light. But was it only part of the dream? Or was it morning again?

 

[bishop]

Four

Four

It was the flash of light that caught his eye first. It was such a moment in time that is almost cliché, especially when one thinks about how many moments flash by and can be missed as if nothing happened at all. But it was a bright day and the wind was just cool enough to make it enjoyable to have his regular morning fix of a danish and cappuccino outdoors on the café's patio. When he opened the doors to go outside, there was no way he could have missed her.

Her red hair covered her features, but accented the rest of her face. Her body was perfect in every way. The shapes, the curves, the simplistic way that each breath she took was a symphony of beauty through the slightest movements of her skin. The shining pendant around her neck made him squint for a moment as he walked like a man mesmerized by witchcraft. She was reading, never looking up once as people walked in and out of the café. By chance or by fate, Jared caught his foot on the chair next to her table. Mumbling an apology, he looked at her. In that moment, she looked at him, barely glancing at him with a feigned understanding and a small smile of dismissal for his clumsiness. But their eyes met for just an instant, and there was a recognition and connection. Those were eyes of the deepest blue. The very depths of the sea could not compare to the darkness and the mystery of what lay behind the glimmer of the sun that reflected from them into his mind.

Then the moment was over, and he moved to a table where he could watch her quietly, his newspaper all but forgotten in his lap. She had enchanted him with a look. The feeling that overwhelmed him at the sight of her was like nothing that had ever filled his heart in the past. Loves won and loves lost all paled in comparison to the mere glint that her eyes brought out of his mind. He knew, beyond all certainty, that she held something special for his life.

Jared never took his eyes off of her as she sat and read her book. She never again looked up until she finally got up to leave. Her glance toward him, humored even at his face of awe, was brief. She smiled at him, and the sun glistened off her pendent. Jared noticed it was an ankh. It was perfectly set between her breasts, accenting the cleavage that so amply graced her figure. The light was blinding for only a second; that was all it took, then the vision was gone.

The light. What was that light? Jared saw what looked like a candle in the doorway. No. Not again. That's not her at the door. It can't be. She's gone. He huddled even further back into the corner of the cell, tears running down his cheeks. There was a brief light, and then it was gone. He saw what looked like the figure of a woman behind the candle's flame. Was it her? It couldn't be. Who else knows how to enter this place? Who would want to? I am nothing now, a shell of something that wasn't worth the time to sincerely love. Confusion set into his eyes again, and he looked around for more signs of someone in his cell. There was only a bowl of bread and a glass of water. His confusion was replaced by hunger and the vision was lost to the reality of loneliness with his meal. Jared loosened the buckles on the straight jacket and released his arms enough to eat.

Who was she? Did she ever really know? What I am missing here? There is something that I have that she can never take from me. But what is it? I can't remember in this place. A sound of small laughter caught his attention, and he stopped chewing to listen closely. Nothing. No sound but the screaming in his head, the terror of being alone again. But there was the sound again. This time closer. There was someone in this place around him. He knew it. He could feel it. But it didn't feel like her. It was something different.

Jared put down his bread and removed the rest of the straight jacket. Standing only in his pants, he hesitated walking out of his cell for the first time since she left him there. But that sound. No one was allowed in his sanctuary. No one was allowed to cross those lines that he'd built up for only her. Or had he given someone else a key in his dreams? Was there someone else here with a candle in his dark nights?

It was too much. In fear, he scooped up the straight jacket and quickly shoved his body back inside. It was protection. It was safety. It was security. No one could hurt him now. No one could get past the buckles if he didn't give them the key. All they had to do was look at him and see him for what he was. No illusions, no lies and nothing hidden except the key.

 

[bishop]

Five

Five

Morning came too early. The shaft of light pierced the room like a blade of steel in his chest. The memories of the candle, the woman and the sound echoed in Jared's head as he rolled over to look at the open door to his cell. There were details of the room that he only noticed every once in a while. Maybe they were there all the time and he just didn't take the time to realize it. Or maybe they came and went with his imagination like the shadows that he had occasionally seen floating around the halls when he walked them during the days of loneliness. There was a calendar on the wall that seemed to flip with some invisible current and turned pages of years that he didn't remember living. There was a table on which sat a deck of cards, a feather pen and a well of red ink, but there was no paper. However, the calendar showed signs of his writing. He didn't recognize the style or the language. Such strange words and even stranger signs.

How did it come to this1
After all we've been through
Two of a pair
Now on opposite sides

Thirteen years and a million memories. Somehow it all seemed too real and too surreal to have been any kind of a life. But the calendar didn't lie. Or did it? Jared shook his head trying to release the paroxysm of rage that began to build up again. It was too early to start these feelings again. Lost in time, lost in the mind; something was missing. He wasn't supposed to be here, but this room was all he could remember. Why? Rose. The Jester. Xanthe. Tempest. The Black Rabbit. Little Eros. There were others. He knew there were others, but they were all missing from here. Why? Were they even real or only part of his mental anguish, the defense mechanism kicking in to protect him from himself? The straight jacket felt more secure as he shivered in the morning darkness, trying to sort through all the personalities and figures that flooded his mind, images of people, places and events.

Memory. His enemy. His tormentor. His trap.

How could one not remember that first night? So many fragments of memories rushed through his mind that Jared felt the fragile covering of his consciousness begin to shatter again and release the anger and the pain and the love. Each wrapped up so carefully in each other. Just as they were that night.

The light. Remember the light. The ankh was the key. Jared remembered now. It was that same ankh, that same cleavage that he found himself staring at in the bookstore that afternoon. Embarrassed, he excused himself to a more particular volume of Jung's Essays on a Science of Mythology. But as she followed him around the corner, Jared realized that she held a fascination for him as he had found in her. It wasn't blatant at first. Subtle really, but yet overt in so many different ways.

"Rose," she said, holding out her hand.

"Jared." He almost passed out at the touch of her hand on his. Her skin was like silk that ran smoothly over the body of a lover already undressed for sadistic lovemaking within the passionate confines of a garden in the mists of a Spring night. And so they did. Hours upon hours of sex, blood, fire, rain; the screams of mercy and pleasure and all release of the innermost sense. There was nothing held back. There was nothing held in. There was nothing left but a total annihilation of their souls into each other. And in that union there was loss inspired and deceptions seeded in the fields of their own desire.

Something jolted him from the sight of their bodies entwined together in glow of love and the hunger of lust. There was someone in the room with him now.

Xanthe! How did she get in? What memories did she feel the right to invoke in this moment of bittersweet remembrance. This was his pain, his life, his death, his loss. How dare she! No amount of love could turn her away from him, but she was there somehow after being locked out for so long. What's this? What are you doing? Jared looked around and saw Xanthe -- was it really her? -- straightening up the desk. Her silence was enough to make him doubt his eyes. He began to undo his bonds in order to touch her, to see if she was real, and that is when he saw the other one. Tempest. What? How? His confusion began to run even deeper than he could comprehend. He watched as the two woman -- almost ghosts in form, strangely outlined rather than flesh and blood -- smiled at each other, exchanged glances and walked back through the door into the darkness beyond. He was alone again.

His scream echoed through out the halls and Jared knew that there was nothing that could be heard by anyone. No one could see into his eyes. There were no open doors from the outside, only those that opened from the inside and he was not ready to open them to anyone that might take away his precious altar to pain and grief, longing and hunger.

But the ghosts kept coming. Phantoms of people and events going on around him, keeping him in touch with some semblance of a reality that seemed only a shadow of what he had lived before. How he wished he couldn't remember. How he wished he could forget. But her face haunted every waking dream and every unconscious nightmare.

Rose. Why did you leave? Why did you have to do it like this?

"Jared, my love, you are obsession. I am compulsion. We are destined to be together -- forever pushed apart -- bound only by our own sacrilege of love."

His mind fractured, and he was lost to the darkness, as he stared, motionless, at the tiny shaft of light from the crack in the plaster over the window, light that barely illuminated the room and completely missed his soul.

1. Lyrics: Mike Pasternack, No Matter What

 

[bishop]

Six

Six

It was not the absence of light that disturbed him. It was the comfort of the darkness. Someone once said, "Be careful when you hunt monsters that you do not become one yourself." The story of Beauty and the Beast was not one of a woman redeeming a man, but of a single individual finding that the beauty can see through the facade of the demonic and unite the two in a union that transcends both 'beauty' and 'beast.' But what happens when the Beast rapes the Beauty and then uses her as a shield to hide the insanity that lurks underneath the skin? Beauty is both deceptive and revealing at the same time. The Beast is never destroyed. It never turns into the prince. It never redeems the ring of eternity.

As Jared sat on the floor, it seemed like hours as the line of light crossed the room and finally made its way across his legs. He knew the revelations of the light. It was the only one of the fears that he held inside this room. It was the three minutes of clarity as the light moved from his lower eyelids to his eyebrows that left him more insane than he had been the three minutes before. It was the moment when the truth and the lies melted into some kind of synergy of emotion that ripped open the wounds of the heart.

It was blinding. The sun. The light. The emotion. The memory.

Side by side, they worked together. It was like any other relationship of enthusiastic romance. It was the thrill of stolen glances and whispered desires. Time and time again, Jared and Rose found themselves locked in some kind of emotional ecstasy between rows of books, on the way to her place, having dinner in a field; each never seeming to find the separation between them that created a uniqueness of individuality. They were one. They were something beyond one. But it was the absence of a feeling of loss or of falling into an abyss that created such intensity between them.

How do you explain such a relationship? How does one actually acknowledge the mind that is no longer its own master, but instead has found within this synchronicity with another that which builds the longing of physical separation into an emotional torture? Separated, but inseparable. There was no fault to be found in them. They were perfect in every way. Until that day. That one day. That awful day the Jester arrived out of nowhere. Or so it seemed. Where did he come from? Who was he? Why the fuck was he there anyway? Had he ever kept a promise to me? Ever? Cretin! Evil, evil cretin!

Jared looked around his cell, the mirrors all broken, the pieces of glass still littered along the floor underneath them. In that moment of perspicuity he found himself wondering why he had broken them. He knew that he had broken them all. He suddenly knew that his cell was merely a piece of the whole. The whole of what? There was more here. He could feel it.

And then the darkness fell back over him. The light was gone. The voices in his head returning to haunt him in the shadows of his agony. The ghosts mulling about to feed him. He saw them in the hall. But no candles tonight. There was no light in the hall to show him the way. No angel to touch his face and wipe the tears away.

In the absence of light, he could see again. He could feel again. It was the stabbing pain in his side that drew the blood to his lips as he bit down hard on them. Nothing compared to the blood that was drawn when she ripped my heart out. What was it she said that night?

"Jared, I want to tell you something."

"What?"

"I love you." The sincerity on her face was stunning as she lay on his chest in that hotel room.

"I love you too," Jared responded as matter of factly. It was a fact. Why deny it?

"No, you don't understand. I love you for who you are. You are more than what I see here. You are more than what I feel under my fingers. You are so much more, and I love you." The look in her eyes. That mystery that was clouding his vision and sucking him deeper into her soul was swirling around his brain like an emotional calenture on some remote island that was all their own. No one else existed. No one else existed. No one else existed. No one else ... but there was someone else.

Jared knew that there was another who did exist. Who? The sense of missing something was warping the picture in his mind. All he could see was her. All he could feel was her body entwined with his, the way they held each other in the night, the blanket of darkness their only cover, and the two of them naked, exposed to the universe that created them.

The laughter rang through his head again and the sight of the blood and the money filled Jared's vision. The Jester. He knew he had won. He knew that he had taken the one thing Jared valued more than his own life. Bought and paid for with blood money. His own blood. His own heart. But it was more than that. He knew that somehow. Not exactly how, but he knew there was more than he could see. Blind men rarely care about seeing the truth. In feelings, so much truth is revealed and so much truth is hidden. But it is in the lies that even more is exposed and incised from the reality he thought they had lived. She lied to me. They both did. Why? To what end?

But the laughter never stopped. For thirteen years, the laughter never stopped. Will you ever go away? You've taken the only thing that I cared about from me. Isn't that enough? Do you want my son too?

Jared's eyes burst open, the tears burning as they filled the sockets with the salt of his bitterness. My son. I have a son. Where is my son?

 

[bishop]

Seven

Seven

"Daddy?" The tiny voice came from the other room. "Where are you, Daddy? Come to bed now. I'm scared."

Jared looked around and saw the shadows of his life in the glow of the monitor. His computer, his books, his work, his life all in a safe cubicle filled with stacks and stacks of paper all around him.

"Daddy?" The voice called again. "I'm scared."

He stood up and walked quietly into the next room. The glow of the turtle tank echoed through the room and cast just enough light for him to see the little shape of a child curled up in bed, shivering under a thin blanket. Little Eros. My son. I knew you were here all along. Jared took a heavier blanket off the floor next to the bed and lay down next to his son, covering them both up. He put his arm around the child and felt him snuggle deeper into his chest, snoring lightly, twitching from a dream to which there was no beginning and no ending.

Jared lay there staring at his son. The beauty of the child brought tears back to his eyes -- the first signs of joy in what seemed like months -- and he softly kissed his forehead. Good night, son. There's nothing to be afraid of. Daddy's here now to keep you safe. Sleep seemed like a dance between fact and fiction, something that existed to draw out the demons and yet still put away the fears of life itself.

The sound of laughter kept ringing through his ears. There it was again.

How in hell ... Jared lifted his head to look into the darkness. All was quiet again. I'm going crazy. Why do I feel this way? What is wrong with me?

He lay back down and moved Eros closer to him. The child rolled over, and Jared felt everything inside him draw back in terror at this dream which was suddenly no longer his own. The back of the child's head was missing. Gone. All that remained was the exposed brain of his son with what looked like teeth marks having decimated the oozing tissue. In the dark, he couldn't tell, and the horror that he felt was paralyzing. Jared heard the laughter again. The Jester. Somewhere in the darkness of the room, the Jester remained very much aware of his panic buttons and was pushing down hard.

More tears. More fear. What in the name of the gods ... He stopped his thought when he saw the shadow of a figure begin to rise up from behind the body of his sleeping child. Who ... The figure was statuesque in appearance, terrifying in beauty, a beast of seduction. It could only be one person. Rose?

She stood there, with scorn on her lips and terror in her eyes, motivated by a force stronger than her own will and propelled by the animosity of lies that leaked into her brain from the mass of silver tubes that protruded from the sides of her head and up into the darkness of the room. Even though she had that grotesque mask on her face, that mask of a Jester's apprentice, Jared watched as she picked his son's dreams from between her teeth. How could she? How did she dare?

The sun glared down on them as Rose ran to catch Eros from the slide, his laughter ringing through the park. It was a day like any other day that they had shared together. Jared had no idea that the damage had already been done, the seeds of deceit sown in every word and deed that she gave to him. His bliss with Rose was complete. His blindness even more secure in the illusions that she created around his heart. Even her love for my child.

Get away from my son, you bitch.

"Make me. I control you. I own you." Her voice was bitter and terrible, filled with the sound of contempt.

And then there he was, standing over her shoulder, pressing down on her to be even more cruel. She obeyed without resistance, the wires of his control cutting her lips into a forced smile and dripping the blood of his spoils down over the chest of the sleeping child.

"Mine forever," she sneered, pointing at Eros.

Never again.

Darkness is a bitter place, full of demons and dreams, hopes and hostilities, fears and fragile emotions. He could never really see his way clear to the exact beginning of the end. When did the lie begin? Was it always a lie? Where did I go wrong? The questions, the blame, the guilt were all infused into his muscles, stretching his body to limits that he never imagined were possible. The suffering of his mind wasn't enough for her. He knew that. But he couldn't get past the feelings.

Jared tightened the straight jacket tighter around himself. The night would be over soon. Maybe the ghosts would come back. Maybe. Death would be preferable to this. Anything to keep the Jester away.

 

[bishop]

Eight

Eight

A lie is not the absence of truth, but the illusion of truth.
​

Morning broke, and Jared found himself in the arms of a dream. Her head rested on his shoulder, and her hair spread out across his chest and belly like a blanket of satin and sensuality. Like so much between them, even her breathing was in harmony with the beat of his heart. The smell of raw sex still lingered in the room mixing with her with own scent of jasmine and musk, awakening the hunger within him. She stirred and found her hands between his thighs, almost unconsciously quickening him to an uncontrollable appetite. He responded. She responded.

It was not so much making love again as it was the savage coupling in an animalistic heat while the light of the Winter morning began to sift through the window and cover them both in a glow that shimmered with dried sweat, semen and blood. There was something about being with Rose that made him feel wanted, loved, sexual and godlike, all in the same moment. She was perfect in technique and flawless in style. He held her hands as she ran them both over his chest and down across his hips. But it was when he was in her that she clawed her way into his skin and released the concupiscence of every cell in his body. The rage that was fueled by their own desire for each other was matched only in the furnaces of Pandemonium.

Pandemonium. Why did that name sound so familiar all of a sudden? His home perhaps. This dark retreat from the world.

Jared shook his head in a moment of weakness that left him wondering if she'd said something to him. He thought there was a tear in her eye, one that almost seemed like an outpouring of blood from her soul. But there was nothing there. It was a mirage, and he realized that it must have been the lack of sleep from their night of exploration and manipulation.

"I just said 'I love you.'" Rose grabbed him by his hair and pulled his face closer to kiss him. It was erotic in its playfulness, sensual in the wicked delight of being only a kiss in the middle of naked abandon.

"The party is tonight," Jared stated.

She rolled on top of him and pushed his hair from his face. "I know. We're going."

"Oh? And here I thought we would just stay in this hotel and fuck all day," he said grabbing her nipple with his teeth. "It is cold outside after all."

"Fat chance." She pushed his face deeper between her breasts and moaned softly in his ear, "Besides, we're showing off tonight again. You wouldn't miss that for the world."

"I'd burn the world to ashes for only a single night with you."

"I know. And someday, lover, you will."

They were gods living in the luxury of a golden dream, beauty beyond comparison when alone, dangerous when together. He knew it, and she knew it too, as they walked into the room that night. The lights from the stage flashed off the leather and steel. He, Pater Mysterium, Lucifer Incarnate. She, Diabla Sadistica, Lillith Sublime. There was nothing and no one in the room that could compare to the radiant presence that they commanded when making their appearances, whether it was the local club or the neighborhood coffee shop. But tonight, they reigned supreme in a sea of flesh and thirst over the Desideratum Nox -- the Night of Sex and Death -- and it was their night to take what they wanted from each other or from any that suited their fancy. And usually there was something that suited them both.

We had it all, and then some. Where are you? Jared looked around for her, but the flashes of light and darkness were blinding him from seeing anything at all. It was like he was in solitary room all alone, without direction or sight.

Then she was there again, leading him back into the crowd.

"You'd get lost if I didn't keep you next to me," she said to him almost like scolding a child. She smiled with those lips that glistened already with semen and kissed him passionately, knowing that the taste of her rapacity would keep him by her side for all eternity.

Jared picked her up and carried her to the couch on the far side of the stage. And then he fucked her. In front of a hundred and twenty people, he fucked her while they screamed for more. It was for show, but there was nothing between Rose and Jared that was merely for show. The intensity of their own feelings made the entertainment all the more real for those who desired to emulate them. They were role models for the licentiousness of the amoral, but they never once turned around, heeding noone but themselves. All they had and all they needed was each other's truculent caresses.

He barely heard the cheering in his ears. All he could smell was her next to him and the cappuccino in his hand.

Jared looked down and saw his newspaper. Next to him sat Rose with her book, silently absorbed in the story of heroes and gods. The café was quiet that morning. The regulars were all there, just as silent in their morning rituals. Jared nodded at the old man at the table near the patio corner. He was the one that had often said how beautiful they looked together and that he hoped their future would be bright. Little did he know the darkness that they spent their time exploring in each other's minds.

"What are you thinking?" She interrupted his thoughts and he jerked to focus his attention on her.

"Nothing much. Just this day seems too good to waste on working. I'm thinking we skip it and hit the lake."

"That won't do," she said. "Bills to pay. Life to live. You know. All that wonderful reality that we have to face every day."

Reality indeed. Every waking moment was spent dreaming of fantasies about her.

Jared sighed. "Sure. I was just thinking out loud."

"I know. You'd be lost without me."

She stood up and then bent down to kiss him. It lingered and then she was gone.

He sat and stared at the emptiness of the streets after the last scintillation of the sun on her hair was gone and she had passed over the horizon on her way to start her day. He looked at his watch. Time to go. Work calls me too.

 

[bishop]

Nine

Nine

Shadows shifted and moved around. Jared saw faces in the corners of his mind. Strange contorted faces that almost reminded him of people that he thought he knew. He was not sure, though, when they moved in and out of the light. The unusual patterns of metal and flesh protruded into his dream and twisted the landscape into Alice's rabbit hole and he felt himself falling toward the center, all hope lost. It was like a movie in slow motion, and he couldn't escape from it.

"Hey. Snap out of it," a voice echoed from somewhere outside the little room where he'd set up this movie projector of a dream.

Jared felt hands on his face and the warm touch of lips as they connected. He opened his eyes and was immediately blinded by the noonday sun and the vision of a woman lying in the grass next to him.

"You fell asleep. I don't know whether to feel worthy or angry." Rose laughed at him. "No one's ever fallen asleep after fucking me before."

Jared sat up and looked around. It was the same field that that they continued to use when they wanted to get away; a small horse pasture, really, that had huge trees and a soft, beautiful roll to the land that made for just the perfect place to hide from the sounds of city life that was just over the fence.

"I ... well, I don't ...," he began, but she put her hand over his mouth.

"You can do that to me forever if you'd like, m'lord," she said with an almost flawless English accent.

"And if you'd stop doing Highlander impressions, then I might think you were something other than a pillow in a pasture."

Rose grabbed him by the sides and began to tickle him. Their laughter was as bright as the day and rang with the sound of love as it was carried into the branches of the trees around them by the breeze of the afternoon. All around them lay nothing but open space and freedom. They could be anything they wanted, do anything they wanted, go anywhere within the confines of their own dreams.

"How is it that our lunch breaks always seem to be two hours?" She looked at him with that grin that he always knew meant trouble.

"We have to go," he said quietly.

"I know."

They got dressed slowly. Jared turned to find his shoes and found hers instead. He picked one up and moved over to put it on her foot. He looked up and fell into her eyes. Time stopped for a moment, and he felt nothing but the incredible pull of raw emotion and saw destiny beckon to him from behind her smile.

Rose slipped her foot into the shoe and held out her hand for him to stand up next to her. The room was full of elegance and fashion. Her dress was matched in beauty only by the diamonds around her neck, both outshined by the smile on her face. Jared stood next to her and looked around the room of masked people dancing. The masquerade was both gorgeous and grotesque, but they each looked especially magnificent tonight.

There was a strange strain of music in Jared's mind. It hadn't stopped since he heard it when they first walked in the door of the hotel. It was discomforting to him, almost like insane laughter set to music. It was out of tune, yet made perfect harmony with the existence of his memories. He tried to shake it off as he looked around the room. Where have I seen this before? It's like a scene out of a movie. The dancers, the masks, the brilliance. Is this real? Is this my life? There was something strange here that he couldn't point out. But he knew that he kept seeing a face in the crowd, someone that he knew, something so familiar and so distant, a jeering smile that was disturbing and foreign, out of place in these festivities.

Faster and faster, my head spins out of control. There is something wrong with this place.

"Lover, will you get me a plate?" Rose interrupted his thoughts again.

"Of course."

He moved to the table and picked up a selection of fruits and a freshly baked chicken breast. As he turned back from the stove, he handed Eros the plate.

"Take this to Rose. Okay?"

"Yup!" The excitement in his son's voice was apparent. Eros loved company and being the center of attention. And he was so often that when Rose was around.

Rose sat on the couch, their movie paused so that dinner could be served and Eros settled for the evening. They often spent nights at his apartment. There was an amazing amount of time that they spent doing nothing more than talking on the couch or holding each other through a movie. The extremes to which they went were actually the rarities in their life. It was almost as if they had a normal life. But Jared knew better. Theirs was anything but normal. It was surreal while being comforting. Nothing could have shattered their love.

She punched him in the arm. "I'm getting a drink. Want something while I'm in the kitchen?"

"Nah. I'm good."

Jared looked around and noticed that Eros was not in the room. He must have already gone to his room. He watched Rose as she walked from the room. The television seemed quiet, images moving without sound. The last line he remembered hearing from it before she left the room was "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved in return."

Wha...?

There was only him and the silence.

 

[bishop]

Ten

Ten

Silence to a blind man. Salt to a wound. There is little difference in one thing and any other thing save in degree.

The years spun by in a day and a day was no more than mere agony of longing for something that he felt he could never really have. Jared sat in the dark and felt the restraints around him tighten of their own accord. For every one day of passion, there were three of sheer torment from the relationship. Maybe it was the fire between them that he continued to feel so deeply over the years. Maybe it was some masochistic need for someone he felt was an equal, who could match him move for move in the chess game that he'd set up as his life. Rose certainly met all those expectations, even if only in such a way as to keep him firmly hanging on, strapped to a bed of emotional nails.

Jared watched silently as the figures moved back and forth in the hallway beyond his cell door. There were still shapes that he thought he could recognize. Tempest. What have I done? They all loved him for everything that he was, a lot that he wasn't and mainly for the illusions that he wrapped around them from the comfort of his own imagination. But every time he looked at them, he only saw what he was missing, rather than what he held in his hands. And, like a moth to a candle, they were consumed in the fury of his touch.

As the shadows moved over his body, Jared knew that there were only two ways out of this place: the Golden Breadcrumbs or the Silver Bullet. The Silver Bullet was certainly the easiest. But every once in a while, he thought that he could see a Golden Breadcrumb just outside his door, sitting in the hallway glowing, waiting for him to pick it up and find another. But the fear of the light, and the desperation of hiding from the sun, kept him from leaving his cell. He'd only done that once since ...

"Hello. Do you want my cookie?"

Jared's head almost spun on his shoulders as he looked around the room. There was nothing there, no one to see. The voice was so clear. Tempest?

She'd held him too many nights without a sound, too many days spent trying to untie the knots of his straight jacket without asking for anything in return. She never understood because he never explained. And then she was gone like a puff of breath on an icy morning.

Jared remembered.

The crushing guilt was overpowering to his senses. The room began to spin and the motion of his memory flooded the walls with images of the past. He couldn't separate the menagerie of pictures. Tempest and the Black Rabbit. Xanthe and Eros. Rose and Jared. The Jester. Who was really who and what did they really know? How much was real and how much was part of something he had created for his own amusement? He wasn't sure anymore. He wasn't sure of anything. He wasn't sure if he even existed. There seemed to be a definitive ending to his life somewhere that he couldn't recall. The trance of walking lifeless had become so critical to his survival that he sometimes wondered if he had just stopped breathing somewhere along the way and was now dreaming the rest of his life in a fucked-up alternative reality that didn't exist for anyone but him. There was no hope here. There was no desire here.

There was only pain.

 

[bishop]

Eleven

Eleven

"Do you want my cookie?" Her voice was filled with such innocence that he about fell over himself to come up with a line.

"Oh, the places I could take that question."

Jared looked at her with such lust. He knew that he had wanted her since he first saw her picture. Tempest was a stunning individual with whom he was comfortable with an immediacy that in itself was almost uncomfortable. He left that party with the certainty that she was someone with whom he wanted to spend time and get to know a lot better.

He reached out to shake her hand at their first meeting, her words echoing in his head and their laughter -- about the cookie that was really in her hands -- ringing between them like a thread that wound around them and through them, drawing them closer. His fingers closed down on emptiness. The frustration of the dream was spent in an anguish that burned the air around his hand and tore into his mind as he screamed and watched her figure disappear into the darkness around him.

That laughter. The insanity rang through his ears again. Her face. Why do I still see her face? He clawed at the straight jacket to loosen it from his chest. He couldn't breathe. Where is she tonight? Why is she gone again? Jared's eyes fogged over with doubt and insecurity.

"We need to talk."

Yes, we do. We need to talk very much.

"No, really. We need to talk. Turn over here and talk to me. I need to know what's going through your mind."

Jared rolled over and looked at her. The sun through the blinds alternated shadow and light over Tempest's body as he looked into her face. She was being serious with him about communication that was more than how they talked with their bodies. It had been a month of intense sex and even more intense feelings that were being explored and submerged, explored and exploited all over again. But there had been little talk, not talk on any level that had depth. There was so much between them that had been left unasked, unnoticed and unanswered. Jared felt like he needed her but could never tell her why.

She ran her hand across his face gently. "Where are we going?"

They had reached a level that sex no longer sustained, and more would be necessary if they were to continue to date. Jared was afraid. Tempest was direct and approachable. She was devoted in every sense of the word while remaining disconnected and aloof. She was the perfect woman to come and go as she pleased and only when she felt wanted. The quality that attracted him to her would be that quality that drove her away from him.

Jared never could reconcile how to make his desires understood without feeling like he was dominating someone else, controlling someone else, forcing someone else into a life that they did not or could not accept. Rose did that to him. They had played for so long at the war games of the heart that there eventually had to be a loser. Jared never recovered from the loss. He didn't want someone else to feel that way because of him.

"We need to be completely honest with each other."

"I agree," she responded quite to his surprise. Honesty at the brutal level by which he was accustomed to derailing relationships was not something that most people could handle very well. Somehow he knew that, but he never could admit it. It was just another weapon in the closet.

Truth, as much as any lie, can be a shield, a barrier against another. One can be so brutal and so evident that it forces another into a corner from which they cannot come out to play. Jared was good at finding corners for everyone to sit in and stay until called for. He had spent his whole life shifting through people and putting each into a place that made sense to him, without once stopping to figure out if it made sense to them. Why should this time be any different?

"I agree as well."

Go away. Please, go away.

Jared sat in the darkness and felt the sound of the Jester's voice run down through his nerves and set them on fire. "I agree that you should tell her the truth about it all. Go ahead. Let her see how much you don't give a shit about anyone or anything other than your fucking obsession. Tell her how you really feel. See if she can handle the way that you see the world. See if she's strong enough to stand up to me and everything that I will tear from her life in order to destroy you. Go ahead. Tell her."

I can't. She'll run away. She'll leave me just like Rose did. She's not Rose. She's not Rose. She's not! He screamed at the darkness around him, twisting to try to see the Jester behind him. There was nothing but the empty room of shattered mirrors and the broken glass on the floor.

"Coward," the whisper came from the depths. "You are such a fucking coward."

But I did tell her. I told her what she needed to know.

"You make me sick."

You can't blame me. She knew what she was getting herself into here. I told her the truth.

"You are a coward, and I am ashamed to think that we even share the same blood.

 

[bishop]

Twelve

Twelve

The lights, the sound; the entire room was packed with an energy that seemed to flow from every aspect of the show. The band played while the crowds jumped and screamed, provoking every nerve of their bodies in a mass of twisting flesh and force. Tempest and Jared moved through them like water over skin. The concert throbbed around them in an encompassing shroud of energy that both freed them and bound them.

I'm tired of being what you want me to be1
Feeling so faithless lost under the surface
Don't know what you're expecting of me
​

Jared looked at her under the flashing lights and saw her beauty. It's too late. Something is changing. He noticed her change over the weeks. He knew that she felt lost and without any direction in his life, submerged under his ideals rather than his passion. It's my fault, but I don't know where to go from here.

Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
​

There were days when he felt like he could do nothing right. Even making love to her was wrong. There was something missing. He professed love. He meant love. But she didn't feel love from him. He could tell. Jared had become so detached in his efforts to remain isolated from influencing others that he had become detached from himself, alone, lost between the flashing light and shadow of the stage lights in his mind.

I've become so numb
I can't feel you there
I've become so tired
So much more aware
I'm becoming this
All I want to do
Is be more like me
And be less like you
​

The music screamed in his ears. It was like he was in the middle of a concert while being isolated in silence. It was the fusion of two worlds that never completely found each other and felt more like an episode of "The Twilight Zone" than anything out of reality. Jared felt both deaf and blind. He had set things in motion, only to find that they came to a grinding halt outside of his control. Control. This was all about control. I don't know where I am. He looked around and there she was.

"I have something to tell you," she said once they reached the VIP level for their seats.

"Okay."

Can't you see that you're smothering me
Holding too tightly afraid to lose control
​

"I'm moving."

"Okay. Where?"

"Away. I'm moving in with someone that I want to be with."

Cause everything that you thought I would be
Has fallen apart right in front of you
​

What? His world tightened, and he felt his brain swirl with memories. What was that email? What did she say? "have a confession ... you will hate me forever ... I have moved to be with him. As far as I know, I am not coming back. Not in the meantime ... I am sorry." He felt the blackness coming back to him, the terrible feeling of remembrance and fear. How did I do this again? Why is this happening to me again?

(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)
And every second I waste is more than I can take
​

"Sounds like an adventure," he replied. It was all he could do. Their relationship had been one of brutal honesty. Tempest was much younger than he was. She had a future that would not include him. He knew that already. He would encourage her to follow her heart no matter what the cost.

"It's what I've decided to do."

I've become so numb
I can't feel you there
I've become so tired
So much more aware
​

The swirling mass of thoughts and feelings were overwhelming to him. As he flashed between emotions, he knew that there was little he could do to salvage whatever was left between them. Coward. The sound of the Jester's voice echoing in his ears, drowning out the music that surrounded him. Not another one, he thought. I can't lose another one like this.

I'm becoming this
All I want to do
Is be more like me
And be less like you
​

Tempest held his hand quietly for a moment to let it all sink in.

And I know
I may end up failing too
But I know
You were just like me with someone disappointed in you
​

Jared knew that she understood his pain. He wasn't sure how she did, but she did. And for the first time, he saw more depth than he could have admitted before. He didn't want to let go, but there was nothing to hold on to anymore. It was all gone. Taken from him by his own actions and reactions to what he felt and thought and said.

I've become so numb
I can't feel you there
I've become so tired
So much more aware
I'm becoming this
All I want to do
Is be more like me
And be less like you
​

And the world snapped shut, closing him off in a chill of shadow and light, both crawling across his skin like a snake waiting to strike at its prey.


1 Lyrics: Linkin Park, Numb

 

[bishop]

Thirteen

Thirteen

Humans are defined by their pain. Gods are defined by their happiness. Heroes are defined by their ability to revel in both the pain and the happiness, their entire existence wrapped up in only the quest that produces both in a lifetime. But, for all the glorious songs sung of victory, even heroes bleed.
​

Jared knew that he was too shallow to be a human and not in touch with reality enough to be a god. Heroism was an art that was lost on him. The darkness swallowed him and spit him out in this cell, to live in the uncertainty of existence, yet in the certainty of solitude. He shut the book and placed it back on the shelf. Rereading history was something that revealed even more to him about his own shortcomings. He tightened the straps on his straight jacket back into place and lay down on the floor to cry.

"Shh." The voice next to him sounded softly.

Tempest?

"Yes. I'm still here. I never left."

But you're gone.

"No. I'm not gone. We just changed. The feelings are still there and real."

What's real? You were real.

"I still am."

Tempest ran her hand across his face like she had so many times in the past. The figure that he saw was there and not there. He didn't know how to explain that she was real in his mind and yet so distant from his hand. Her form shimmered in and out of his sight. Her hand brought comfort to his torment, yet it tormented him more because he wanted to hold her and his arms were bound up in the straight jacket. He couldn't bring himself to release the bonds and take a hold of her.

But I fell in love with you.

"Yes, but you didn't know how to love me."

But you're gone. The sense of sorrow filled his consciousness and the darkness began to take her image away from him.

"No, I'm not gone. We've just moved on to something else between us. It won't be the same. It will be something new. But we can't go back now."

I'm so sorry.

He heard her final words as her form finally faded away from his sight. "I know. All is forgiven."

Jared lay there in the darkness, her words echoing around him, coupling with his own morbid hallucinations. She had always wondered why he compared her to Rose, but it was really that he contrasted them. Tempest was so different than Rose in so many ways. Similarities just didn't exist that made any sense to compare. Even in his delusion, he never made a connection in his own mind as to endings. It was just that; a delusion of sorrow.

There was a sound of cracking, then the room was flooded with light. Jared saw the blackness all around him coruscate in a blinding vision of tarnished gold, hardwood and marble. The desk, the door, the bookshelves, the other plastered windows that he was unaware existed in this cell. Everything was open to the light. He rushed to find the bucket of plaster that somehow he knew was right under the desk.

As he reached up to fix the hole that had crumbled in the plaster, he saw the outside for the first time. The garden, the wondrous beauty that lay outside his window, was something that shook his memories to the core.

And then he saw it.

Jared only gazed at it for a moment, soaking in the sight before him. He was overwhelmed by the passion that filled him quickly. And then it was gone, the darkness returning as he covered the window with plaster as quickly as his hands would move with the brush.

That's not for me. That's not mine. I don't deserve to leave this room.

"But it's there." Another soft voice spoke from the shadows.

Wha...?

He turned around slowly.

"Leave just a small portion of the window uncovered. You need that light to find your books in the darkness. Like hope, it will be as a candle for you now that your angels do not visit as frequently as before."

They've all left me except as ghosts of who they were to me.

He saw the form in the shadows near the bookshelves. He wasn't sure who he was -- it wasn't the Jester this time -- but he was holding the book that Jared had just put away; he could tell by the cover, though he couldn't see the title. He didn't need to see it. It was one that he read quite often in his refuge. He took his advice and left the small line in the plaster uncovered and the shaft of light remained as it had before.

"You will have to leave this room to reach that fountain. It is the wellspring of this estate, of this house, of your soul. But you do have to leave here to get there."

I can't. It's too hard. This is my home. I deserve to stay here.

Jared picked up the straight jacket from the back of the chair and removed the leather coat that he wore. He didn't remember how he came to have it. The light began to fade as the sun dropped to the horizon outside the window. As he sat down the coat and placed the straight jacket back around his body, he saw the figure disappear with the light, and there was darkness again in the room. He was alone once more.

Come back. Don't leave me now.

He was at home, but he was not at peace. The sight of what he saw outside the window stayed in his head. He longed for that fountain. But this was home.

 

[bishop]

Fourteen

Fourteen

Jared didn't know how long he had lain there on the floor. He didn't recall seeing the light move across him. There was certainly some light here and, though he couldn't tell the source, it didn't appear to be a definitive ray from the crack in the mess he'd splashed over the window. It was just enough light to see the outlines of things around him in his cell. The certainty of what was a dream and what was real had slowly merged into some kind of amalgamation of visions and nightmares, and he stopped believing in both. The room was quiet except for the grinding of memories in his skull. They pitched and rolled with every movement of his thoughts, convoluted and twisted in a terrible sense of dread and capitulation of the unknown.

There was no internal dialogue today, no voices telling him where to go and how to feel. He felt lost to the turmoil of the emptiness. What do I do now? Silence was all that responded. Say something, dammit! In a furious rage, Jared twisted and convulsed as he loosened the straight jacket and released his arms, flailing around in an epileptic fit of despair and anger. He screamed. Let go of me, he thought he heard himself howl into the darkness. It sounded like it echoed in the room, but no louder than in the back of his head. But all he felt was trapped behind his own eyes, something that was nothing more than a stranger to himself, released to the fate of his umbrageous consciousness and raging against the storms that beat him back into his own fears.

I must get out of here. I'm dying, and I know it. I will not die alone or in this darkness. I will see the sun again. I will drink from that fountain one last time.

Jared stood up to take off the straight jacket, his determination beginning to grow inside like a seed that was finally pushing through the snow. He fell over when he tripped over something next to him. He looked and saw that it was a toy soldier. He looked around and found himself surrounded by playthings of all kinds piled as high as he could see. Panic set in and he tried to move but found himself turned around and face to face with Mr. Potato Head, the plastic mustache hanging on by little more than the support of the Lego block next to it. Laughter. I hear laughter.

A dark glow of something malicious opened up above him, and Jared looked up and recoiled in horror at the sight of the Jester above him. Towering, awful, menacing, the Jester opened the lid to the box wider and began to flood everything with the eerie light of illusion and recollection. The laughter filled Jared's mind and blew the hope from him in the instant that he saw the Jester's face.

"Don't you get it yet? You can never leave here."

It's not my home anymore. I'm leaving.

"Oh, yes it is. You will never escape this. You built it."

I can. I will. I understand now.

"You understand nothing. You think they loved you? You think that you found something in each of them worth loving? Or was it what each of them found in you that you are running from now? Are you running from who you really are? Look around you, you fuck up. Where are you?"

Jared tried to understand and wasn't making the connection.

"Of course you can't understand. You are too stupid to get it. You're a fucking toy, and they wanted nothing more than a distraction for a brief moment in their lives so that they could find someone they really loved. You are nothing. Nothing to them. Nothing to yourself. You're nothing but a toy. You are right where you belong, in a toy box waiting for the next user to come get you out, dust you off and play for a while."

Jared tried to retreat and fell into the seat of a bulldozer. The roar of the Jester's laughter shook him to his bones and he felt as if he was being scorched through his skin.

"You think she loved you? You think Rose ever gave a shit about you? Don't you know she was always mine? They all are in the long run. They are all pawns in this game."

Jared shook his head in confusion and pain. No! It's not true!, he yelled back in agony of the truth.

"They all act only as I set you up to accept."

His mind couldn't endure what he heard. It continued to swirl around him like a fog of desperation and madness.

"Deal with it, loser. You have nothing to offer them. You have nothing at all of worth to anyone. You are nothing more than a coward who is useful to them when they have nothing else to use. And you run to them, thinking this is love or that is love. You want so much to be nothing but a toy. You are delusional in your devotion to them, delusional in your need to be loved. They care little for that devotion, but feed the delusion so long as they get from you what they want. It's best that way. Can you imagine you ever really loving anyone?"

I loved her! I fucking loved her! You can't tell me otherwise. And I fell in love again. It was true. It was there. I felt it.

"You felt nothing but what they gave you to feel. You didn't have the balls to love them. You wanted to sit in your cave until they came to get you out and pet you like the little reptile that you are. You wanted them to live their lives and only include you when it was suited to you. They knew you long before you could ever know them."

Jared tried to get up and move. The Jester's finger reached in and flicked him. His body arched up and over a pile of stuffed animals until he landed face-down between two plastic-perfect legs. He didn't even look. He just rolled over and stared up in terror at the jeering face above him.

"You are a stuffed monkey. Look at you. A toy, a trifle, bland, more plastic than human, worthless, delusional."

Get out of my head. I'm not delusional. You're fucking with my head.

"I'm not the one in the toybox being groped by Barbie."

The laughter rang through the expanse of plastic and metal until it faded out with Jared's last thought and feeling, ending with a deafening silence in the darkness.

 

[bishop]

Fifteen

Fifteen

It only hurts when I remember. He poked the fire some more to move the logs around, the flames rising higher around the little pile of things that he'd placed there. He watched the burning memories of ...

"Jared."

Rose?

"What are you doing?"

I'm just trying to get the fire going a little more for us. He turned back to the fire. Eros sat next to him trying to blow on the flames under the logs. They looked like a pair of desperate pyromaniacs. Rose laughed at them.

"What are you laughing at over there," he asked her.

"Just the two of you. It's so cute. I've missed you both so much."

Like most nights with her had become, Jared felt this one was special because, finally, after three months of silence between them, Rose had called. It seemed like a strange pattern was forming during their second year together. Time away from each other, time spent in each other's company, both at odd intervals. Sometimes there was sex and sometimes there was nothing more than passion. But she always made him feel loved. She as good at that.

It's an illusion. He turned back to the fire, stoking the flames brighter around the ashes of his memories.

"What we have is very real, Jared. I love you very much. I just have a life that you don't want to be a part of and I understand that. I wouldn't want to force you into that."

"I understand that," he said mournfully. "It's just that it pains me when we go this long without talking. At least, when you are gone like this, it would be good to stay in touch."

He looked into her eyes. They seemed sincere to him, strangely luminescent of the passion that he remembered. I remember. I do. Rose's face was pale even in the glow of the fire. Not pale in the kind of gothic death that he was so used to when they first met, but pale in a fullness of innocence and desire. It was if she had been kept from the sun for so long that she was purely a creature of the moon. She had changed so much in the time they'd known each other. He loved her with everything that he was inside, with everything that he could give her from his soul.

"I have commitments."

He sighed heavily. "I know. It's all good. I'm here when you're ready."

"I know that too. We're okay. It just takes time to bring things back around to zero. I want to be here with you and Eros. You know that."

"Yeah." He didn't sound convincing enough, he knew that.

Jared looked over at the little boy racing his cars around the living room as they sat together on the couch. There was so much that he wanted out of life. Rose just didn't care for the stability he was offering right then, her life filled with the underground of bands, always a drug of some kind -- whether Xanax or a little cocaine here and there -- and the club scene that just didn't interest him anymore.

Jared wasn't the same person as he was when they first met even a year ago. He had changed a lot. Living on his own had changed him some, and raising Eros alone, without Xanthe around all the time, was doing the rest. But Rose was young. She needed to be able to live her life before settling down. He respected that. He'd been there too. He understood that need to feel like one had lived some kind of excitement before strapping on kids, family and life as an adult. He hadn't done that until too late in life, and it almost destroyed everything that he cared about. He didn't want her to make that mistake either. It would certainly be bad for her and terrible for them together. They had played hard in the past. They had fun in the past. But it was time to make decisions on what kind of fun was in their future. That fun had to be different with Eros around, and he didn't feel that she could take it quite yet. He was just blowing wishes at the stars, and he knew that too.

"Hey." Jared snapped out of his thoughts at the sound of her voice. "You wanna beer?"

He laughed. "Yeah. Sure. If we had beer around here, you'd be the last to get it."

She laughed at him and got up headed for the kitchen. "Really. I'm getting a drink. You want one?"

"Yeah. Go ahead. I'm going to get Eros ready for bed."

Jared looked at his son playing near the fire. The child had had a fascination with the flames as long as he could remember. Just like he did. Something about playing with fire turned him on.

Memories. Such memories of them all. Where did they all go?

After he got Eros snuggled in bed, he curled up with Rose on the couch. They watched a movie together and quietly talked about things that he wished now he could remember. Sleep came to them in the darkness, held securely in each other's arms.

So many things lost in memory. So many things gone in the fire of my pain.

 

[bishop]

Sixteen

Sixteen

Jared stared at it. The silver glow filled the room with a light that left everything in shadows and nothing illuminated. It just hung there in the darkness in the middle of his cell, floating in front of him like an eidolon of fear that mirrored what he felt behind his eyes. He heard her voice even though he couldn't see her.

"What are you waiting for? Take it."

But it's not mine.

"Oh, but it is yours," her face appearing in front of him, the scorn on her lips twisting them into a vicious pout that he could never resist. She pointed at the Silver Bullet as it continued to spin in place, creating a trace of silver glow that seemed to be an energy of anticipation and finality drawing him closer to it. Then she was gone.

He loosened the straight jacket just enough to reach out to touch it. What if ...?

"Good boy. Take it now." Jared turned his head and looked to his right. There she was again. The cruelty in her eyes was terrifying and surreal. It was like nothing he had seen in her before, but he recognized it from a place in his mind that he couldn't touch except in the moments when he feared her the most.

I fear it.

"Of course you do. It means you have to make a choice on your own." As he turned his head from her, she appeared on his left and again in his face. Rose's face was still the pale moon color he loved so much. Yet, it was streaked with blood that ran from where her eyes had been, scooped out by some unknown force, blinding her to all but her own illusions of animosity and cruelty. "Tough choice, eh? He's right. You are a coward."

How do you destroy a devil to save an angel who's torn out ...?

"What's that? Did you say something to me?" She taunted him. Jared felt like the room was spinning, her face appearing and disappearing around him so fast that he couldn't tell if she was real or just something that his mind was using against him.

No. It was just a random thought. It was nothing.

"Good. Now, take it and run it through your skull. It might do us all some good. Finally, Jared does everyone a favor and takes his own life. It would be about time."

No.

"It's so cliché, but you once promised to die for me. Would you just fucking get it over with already? I'm sick of looking at you."

No, I only promised to die for you once, and I've died daily for years. Anger welled up in him as he turned to face her, prepared to stand ground and face his greatest fears and his deepest pain.

Rose was horrifying. Her face disfigured by a mask that shifted between form and motion, something that seemed both solid and liquid, the fluid-like snakes crawling around her features. She was like some half-dead vampire gone mad, her once gorgeous red hair replaced with nothing more than thin wires that cut through her flesh, all whipping around her in a storm that surrounded only her. Her skin hung on her bones as if it was melting from her. The shock caused Jared to take a step back.

"That's it. Fear me. I still control you. I still own your heart," she said as she reached inside of her body, her hand passing through skin like it didn't even exist. "See? I have it right here." She pulled out a small burgundy box and held it up to him. "It's still mine."

"It's yours. You keep it," he whimpered under her awful presence.

Jared thought he heard a small whisper from somewhere that didn't seem to come from her, but when he looked up at the monstrosity, he could see something behind the threatening vision in her eyes. "Only I can release you," he heard. And then it was replaced by the roar of laughter in his head that drove them apart as he hopelessly longed to find something human in her.

There's nothing left of you here. As he spoke to her, she seemed to grow even larger and the violence that surrounded her increased so much that Jared felt like he could no longer stand his ground in front of her. The sound of her shrill anger hurt his ears and shook the foundation of his hope. He felt helpless against her again. There was something else in this room that controlled her, almost puppet-like. He could see that there was more changed in her than just her appearance.

Rose screamed and convulsed as if being pulled back into the darkness of the ceiling. Her hair entwined around him, the sharp edges sliced through the straight jacket without effort. As the wires of her grotesque mind and body cut deep into the fabric, they cut into his flesh leaving streaks of blood and pain. Jared cried out in agony at her touch. Every slice of his body infused his blood with memories, and they flowed across his body, streaking his skin with the pain of loss and love.

And then she was gone, the darkness returning, leaving only the glow of the Silver Bullet that continued to spin in the middle of the room. The straight jacket was in shreds on the floor, and the awareness of an unresolved past still ran down his wounded body.

Jared made his decision and reached out to grasp the Silver Bullet. It immediately stopped spinning, but still gave off its shallow glow as it warmed to his touch.

Any light is better than no light at all. He looked around the room to see the light throwing evil shadows. Jared could make out pieces of his mind that were scattered around, laying in piles of forgotten rubble from his neglect.

Then he turned and stumbled out into the hallway beyond his cell.

 

[bishop]

Seventeen

Seventeen

He fell against something hard. The door opened smoothly as Jared turned on the knob and gave it a push. The light was blinding, and he held up his arm over his eyes for a moment. The sun was warm, and the sounds of spring were everywhere around him. His eyes adjusted enough to see out into the estate's grounds. The trees, the bushes, the smells. Everything was perfect.

I'm free, he thought as he walked out into the open air.

"Daddy!" A small, strong voice yelled at him from across the lawn. Jared saw Eros running towards him from the garden path that led out into the far side of the estate.

"Eros! Hey!" He knew that his own face had just lit up. His son did that to him. "Where's your mother?"

"Over there." Eros pointed behind him, back into the garden.

Scooping the little boy up into his arms and gave him a hug. He was hugged back.

"Come on. Let's go get her and see what she's up to."

He put Eros down, and they walked hand in hand back down the path toward the garden. I'm missing something. There is something here I am supposed to see. But I can't remember. They continued on until he saw the familiar face of Xanthe. She was looking great today. How long has it been now? It seems like yesterday. Jared scratched his neck and looked at her for a moment.

"Hey. You been here long?"

"Not really," she looked at him as she always did in that kind of approvingly annoyed look that she had perfected during the course of their relationship. "We just stopped by on our way to lunch to see if you wanted to join us."

"Nah. Thanks. I've got plans." Jared wasn't quite sure what his plans were. His head was still a little fogged up from his dream. Or was it a nightmare?

"What? Plans with her?" Xanthe shot from the hip, there was no doubt about that.

"Who?"

"Never mind. You wouldn't tell me the truth even if I had to beat it out of you." She had obviously become exasperated with him just in the short time they had been standing there talking.

"You two have a great time today. Have him back this evening about dinnertime? I'll make something for us all. Okay?"

"Sure." Xanthe took Eros by the hand, and they walked toward the house, disappearing behind a large bush shaped like a frog.

What did I come out here for? I was looking for something. What was it? Jared looked around the garden. The greenery was lush and full. He saw the labyrinth entrance ahead of him. He always loved the twists and turns, running around chasing Eros around the paths that led to the center. I can't remember what's in the center. He scratched his head again, smoothing back his hair, and headed off for the entrance.

Xanthe. You were there too. I saw you. His memories flooded back in as he entered the labyrinth and headed off to the right.

Years in the making, their relationship had been one of constant turmoil until they got married. It was almost a year after he had spent time with his brother. I have a brother. Yes, I remember that now. They shared Eros together, and Eros was as much her pride as he was Jared's own joy. That marriage didn't last long. Jared couldn't remember now exactly why. Why can't I remember? Why are my eyes so closed to these memories? Xanthe was something that he pictured in his mind as stability and comfort in times when it was darkest. Where were you earlier? His thoughts crashed and he couldn't figure out where she fit, outside of being the mother of his child. She was so much more, but that was lost in time. I have to remember this too. I have to be able to tell Eros.

Jared noticed that the path was becoming darker as he moved on. He looked up and saw that clouds had formed and were closing together in an unusually rapid pace. Strange. His foot hit a stone plate. He stopped to look at what he'd stumbled across. Jared knelt down to look at the stone and almost fell back. On the stone was his name and the words, "Rest in Peace." Stunned for a moment, he didn't notice the figure that was stepping through the bushes as if they were mere shadows.

"What did you think? That you'd actually left us so soon? Tsk. Tsk. So sad. So sorry." The voice was unmistakable.

Jared fell back and tried to crawl away from the sound of the voice. His shoulders hit the bushes behind him, but they felt solid to the pressure that his body put upon them. No! Not again! He tried to desperately push backwards through them to get away. Failing, he flung his arms over his head in fear.

"Run, you fucker. Run." There was a sound like ripping eternity and shredding metal. He didn't look up.

Jared couldn't get up off the ground. He tried to bury his face in his hands and yet keep his head covered from the sheer agony that he felt. Not again. Not this again. Eros! Xanthe! Don't leave me again! He sobbed and shook even more until he felt his teeth would come apart at the roots. He could feel the darkness close in over him again, leaving him along in the misery of his memories.

With the darkness came the silence again, the voice of the Jester gone with the wind that finally ceased to howl around his head. Looking up, all he saw through the silver glow was the hall around him and a picture above him, defaced and mangled. It was the picture of a woman. I know that face.

And Darkness took him away.

 

[bishop]

Eighteen

Eighteen

He opened his eyes to sparkles in the darkness. There was a translucent quality to them that he seemed to recall was something special to him once upon a time. But Jared was caught off guard and blinded by the flickering light in front of him, and he rolled on the floor to try and escape the light.

"Come back, babe," the familiar voice spoke from the light.

Jared rolled to his knees and rubbed his eyes to try and focus better on the light. He felt the blood run down his arms and back, pooling on the floor under him.

Tempest? What are you ...?

"Come back and take my hand. I'm still here."

But I thought that you left.

"I didn't leave. We said this before. We merely changed. There's nothing wrong with that." She moved closer to him to reach his hand. "But we are going to take a different route this time. You are going to walk with me down this hall rather than in front of me. Trust me. We're going to talk this time."

Jared felt her hand, and he grasped it firmly, steadying himself until she embraced him. He felt secure again. Tempest ran her hands along his arms. He felt a tightness surround him and realized that as she wiped away the grime from his body, blood was being miraculously replaced with leather. The jacket. You brought the jacket with you?

"Just for now," she whispered in his ear. "I'm not leaving it this time."

They stood up together, Tempest held his arm again to ensure that he was steady. They looked around in the glow of her presence and saw the hall around them. It was magnificent in its tenor and substance. Portraits hung on the walls as the pair looked up at them. The pictures were all different sizes. The ornate frames stood out from the walls and set each off with an individuality that showed each picture to be unique and special.

"What is this place," Tempest asked as they walked further down the hall.

It's a gallery of love. Each picture is someone that I have loved, no matter how much or how little.

"Do you know the name of every one of these people?"

No. Only in the larger frames. Those are the most special in my life.

Tempest stopped him and turned him around too look back. "Then who is that," she asked pointing at the large painting that was defaced above where she found him. "The name plate is fucked up, even if we could read it from here."

She has no name. She was the First that was loved by me as an adult. But she was the Holy Grail of my brother's existence. It wasn't so much that there was a long-lasting love between us, but the passion was undeniable. She was not to be contained by love or any other emotion. That night that she came to me ... Jared trailed off as if lost in another memory. He wanted to contain her, preserve her, worship her image rather than her soul. She just wanted to be loved.

"And this one," she pointed at the next picture of the same size.

Xanthe. My second wife, mother of Eros. My first Love.

"Second wife?" Tempest looked around the gallery inquisitively. "Where is the picture of your first wife?"

This is a gallery of love, not of hate. There is no one here but those whom I have loved and who have loved me in return.

"What about that one?" She pointed to the largest painting in the room. It seemed that it stood out among the rest, though by only a mere perception of distance and space.

Rose. My first Passion. She's gone now though I still wonder why. I've never understood it. Memories flashed in Jared's mind and he felt a tremor of pain rise into his skull.

"Stay with me here. Don't go yet. Stay." Tempest held on to his hand, gently grounding him in the room with her.

There is a pain here.

"I know. Don't run from me. We still have much to talk about here."

He turned and held her close to him. Why do I feel such comfort here? Why do I feel so alone and so distant yet so connected at the same time? Where am I now?

"Shh. Look here with me." She pulled his head from her shoulder and turned him around and stood behind him, her arms around his chest. "Who are all these others?"

I don't know them all by name. They are those whom I loved somewhere in my life, all of them important in their shaping of my life, of my experiences, of the way that I relate to others.

They began to walk again, further down the hallway. Jared felt comfort for the first time since his nightmare had begun. There was a peace that filled him, transforming him from the inside. He was beginning to feel as if this place was right for him, to be here with her and stay through the night. Interrupting his thoughts, the light shimmered for a moment as if by some force that tried to repel it. Tempest held her head. He touched her and watched her form begin to fade from the room.

Not yet! Don't go yet. I need your light.

"No, Jared. You don't need my light. You have your own light."

Jared looked down at his hands and saw that he still carried the Silver Bullet. It continued to glow, shedding its pale light around his feet.

But, you said ...

"I said that I would walk with you a while," she interrupted. "We have walked now and shared each other's comfort." Tempest looked up and pointed at two empty frames on the wall next to where they stood; one larger than the other. "Who goes in these?"

I don't know. One of those should be ...

His memory shimmered like her light, and he saw a face in the frames.

... you. He turned to face her. Tempest?

He was left alone in the dim glow of the hallway and felt the blood begin to run down his arms again. The jacket was gone just as she had left -- suddenly and quietly -- but he heard her voice echo in his head, "Yes, I know. But which one is mine?"

Tempest. I don't know how to ... His head filled with thoughts and emotions as he watched one of the frames fill with her portrait. The paint swirled and stained until her face appeared angelic and satisfied. Yes, you are such a comfort to me.

Jared stood there in the silence of the hallway, a thousand blank stares holding his mind's eye as he looked into each of them. There were no answers here. There were only more questions. Jared felt alone again, lost in the expanse of his memories that this place invoked. But there was light and he could see a door that wasn't too far away from him now. If he could just force his wounded body to cross the distance.

This would be a long, dark night of the soul.